


I Hear My People Screaming Now (I See Fire)

by ThunderStrikesTwice (ThunderDownOnGreenside)



Category: Sengoku Basara
Genre: Afterlife, Aftermath of Violence, Angst and Tragedy, Blood, Character Death, Character Study, Colors, Fear of Death, Implied Relationships, Introspection, M/M, Pre-death thoughts, So many colors, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 23:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1406887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderDownOnGreenside/pseuds/ThunderStrikesTwice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything around him is torn up, wrecked, ruined, desecrated so horribly and thoroughly that he knows this place will never be the same again. The ground is scorched, the earth overturned, the land barren if not for the endless sea of bodies stretching out all around, broken flags and blades stabbed into the bloodied dirt like skeletal reminders of all who had once lived before this battle. Colors bend and snap in the corner of his vision - white, green, violet, gold, red, blue - final banners of bitter fortitude standing tall as the only survivors in this desperate stretch of wasteland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Hear My People Screaming Now (I See Fire)

The sun burns dimly overhead, a smoldering ember at the bottom of a forgotten fire, a fading light lost in a storm of darkness, a bright star in the wrong place at the wrong time and slowly being swallowed by the flickering of reality. It's hard to see through the veil of distance settling slowly but surely over his one good eye, but he knows it's there. It's always there. Always will be. The sun is a constant thing, an endless future stretching out on a pathway of flames, a stairway to the grand, burning finale.

 

 

Perhaps Mori had been onto something, after all.

 

 

Fat lot of good that it did him anyway, though; The Lord of Aki is just as bad off as he is, if not worse, his curved blades stabbing into the ground and arcing through the air like a bent halo. A broken weapon for a broken mind - a genius, yes, but anyone who rejects their humanity is not as sound as they would like themselves to be.

 

 

Perhaps Chosokabe had tried to show the other that, once upon a time; perhaps he had not. It doesn't matter now. Death is a final contract, and neither ocean-born warlord will walk away from this without fulfilling it. Both are already on their way, Mori silent, Chosokabe restless; maybe they'll discover what they were missing in their final moments, he doesn't know. Humanity is not so cruel as to deny a final solace, and it's never too late to settle. They'll be alright.

 

 

He has to trust in that.

 

 

What he doesn't trust is himself. How can he when his heart is breaking? He's stronger than letting his emotions consume him, he must be. It's been so long...rage is one thing...pain is another...but desolation? This pure, overwhelming feeling of helplessness and desperation? No. Never. He can't. Not even with all of this around him.

 

 

What would Kojuurou say?

 

 

In life he probably would've comforted him in some roundabout way, used that unfailing logic of his to sweep aside all the well-concealed anguish and agony, but in death, he can say nothing, for obvious reasons. Kojuurou will never speak again; he will never caution him again against reckless behavior, never chastise him for his perpetual brashness, never commend him for another job well done. His back would be defenseless if not for him laying on it. The gardens at the Date compound will fall into disrepair, although perhaps they will overgrow the estate instead, undying and unconquerable, just as endless and Kojuurou had wanted his reign to be.

 

 

The thought is vaguely comforting, at least, although it does little to soothe the gaping wound in his heart, the one echoing the savage tear in his chest that slowly drains the life out of him. Heh. Figures that it would be slow and debilitating, unlike Maeda's brutal and sudden blow into oblivion.

 

 

The vagabond in question lies several paces over, not flung sideways like Mori or doubled-up like Chosokabe or even face-down like Kojuurou, but flat on his back and half-closed eyes gazing endlessly at the sky. He stopped bleeding a while ago, which is a miracle in itself; after watching the giant wound carve itself across Maeda's body, he had been sure that it would never cease. His family is nowhere near here to see this, nowhere near close enough to realize what has become of someone who will never come home.

 

 

At this rate, they'll never _know_ ; they'll just feel it in their hearts as they break, break like Kojuurou's bones when he hit the ground that last time, break like his own voice when he screamed himself silent out of sheer agony and desperation.

 

 

He grits his teeth, tasting blood. Everything around him is torn up, wrecked, ruined, desecrated so horribly and thoroughly that he knows this place will never be the same again. The ground is scorched, the earth overturned, the land barren if not for the endless sea of bodies stretching out all around, broken flags and blades stabbed into the bloodied dirt like skeletal reminders of all who had once lived before this battle. Colors bend and snap in the corner of his vision - white, green, violet, gold, red, blue - final banners of bitter fortitude standing tall as the only survivors in this desperate stretch of wasteland.

 

 

White for Echigo, with its endless fields and sprawling estates, with its benevolent leader and his most beautiful blade, with its deathless dreams in shades of palest kindness only brought on by the strangest war god the land had ever known.

 

 

Green for Aki, with its seafaring flirtations, with its cunning commander and his endless ambition, with its sunlit prophecies illuminated by a man driven by equal shares of impeccable genius and unavoidable madness.

 

 

Violet for Shikoku, long banners unfurled like sails for its indomitable fleet, for its captain and commander and ultimate guardian, for the light and life of its people long-protected by a man worth more than most men put together. 

 

 

Gold for the Eastern Army, with its unstoppable future, with its young leader poised to bring the greatest era up from its chains, with its great struggle against the Western Army and Ieyasus's own battle against Mitsunari, the very one that destroyed them both here today, one doomed to die from the start, the other only set on following. Its impossible to tell now which side they fulfilled, only that it is done.

 

 

Red for Kai, Kai with its hills and grand estate and blazing fury of greatness. Red for its warlords dead and buried, for its ninja corps strewn and slaughtered, for its generals ruined, murdered, and driven into the ground without so much as a second thought. Red for burning flames from lightning storms, red for twirling spears and shouting voices, red for power and pleasure, red for eternity and futurity and promises and _red_ , red, red, **Red.**

 

 

Red for the blood of the one man who matched him blow for blow, red for his passion and red for his love. Red for the haze that would cross his vision, red for the energy that his rival would release, red for the scream that tore out of his throat when those spears went up but his rival went down. Red for the tie once wound around his wrist, red for the band now bound around his arm, red for the torn and ripped clothes on the achingly still body beside him.

 

 

_Yukimura..._

 

 

Blue for Oshu.

 

 

Blue for commandments, for a land unconquerable and untouchable, for an estate built up from darkness and rebuilt from the end, for a people with a hidden oath always above their heads swearing to protect them.

 

 

Blue for missing temperance, blue for the nighttime sky under trees in the garden, blue for a past, a present, and a broken future. 

 

 

Blue for a dragon's scales, too tough to pierce, but also blue for a dragon's treasure, which can be stolen and doesn't last forever.

 

 

Blue for the mended stitches in his coat, blue for his men's armor and honor, blue for the words spoken by friend and retainer and rival alike.

 

 

Blue for endlessness, deep as the sea, dark as the surface that is so far away now.

 

 

Masamune can't breathe, his good eye open in a vain attempt to _see something, anything_ before it all ends. He feels broken, crushed, heart fragile and desperate in its attempts to keep him alive, to keep him from following his comrades into the slow oblivion of death. But nothing is more useless than fighting the inevitable. Nothing is more painful than being the last of its wrath.

 

 

He breathes once-

 

 

And then nothing. 

 

 

______________________________________________________________________________

 

 

And then the light again.

 

 

 

 


End file.
